


Underground

by surreysmum



Category: Eastern Promises (2007), Elizabethtown (2005)
Genre: Crossover, M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-05-26
Updated: 2014-05-26
Packaged: 2018-01-26 15:31:07
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 3
Words: 8,737
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1693391
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/surreysmum/pseuds/surreysmum
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Nikolai (as played by Viggo Mortensen in EP) meets Drew (as played by Orlando Bloom in Etown), in a strange and desolate setting. Can two such different men make a connection?</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

[](http://s84.photobucket.com/albums/k35/surreysmum/?action=view&current=Underground.jpg)  
Title: Underground  
Author: surreysmum  
Pairing: Nikolai Luzhin (Eastern Promises) / Drew Baylor (Elizabethtown)  
Rating: NC-17  
A/N: My sincere thanks to my wonderful friend Nancy for the beta, special gratitude to Tati for helping with Russian diminutives, and hugs to Tularia for the awesome gift of the banner!  
This story is dedicated to Nancy on the occasion of her birthday.

 

In one of the less than posh suburbs of London, one where industry has the upper hand, there is a large, unkempt field next to a London Transit depot. The single line of track that leads out into the middle of the field is partially hidden by uneven clumps of long grass, so the lone Underground car that sits at the track's end seems to the casual eye to be there by some sort of bleak magic. 

It has not been entirely solitary, that car. It has been visited. "HOTDOGS," it proclaims in bright confident colours to the morning passengers on the commuter rail line half a mile away, and on the other side, more obscurely, "YORKS" or perhaps "YOICKS." Still it looks rather lonely and sad, for all that. After a period of honourable, if rather humdrum, service to hundreds of men and women each day, it now sits in silence, the occasional cannibalisation for spare parts the only interruption in its slow decline into rusty oblivion. 

Or so you would think. 

#-#-#-#- 

Nikolai Luzhin was not a man to curse aloud. Silence was best. Still, when the rain started in earnest, soaking his shiny leather shoes, slicking his hair to his skull, and starting to make inroads past the collar of his trench-coat, Nikolai grew annoyed. Taking this shortcut through the empty field no longer seemed like a good idea, particularly since the sun had set an hour ago, and between that and the sheeting rain he could barely see a few feet in front of him. 

One English habit Nikolai had never fallen into was carrying an umbrella at all times. It looked effete. Certainly he carried any number of other useful objects, well hidden, but none of them would help him against this downpour. Shelter was necessary. 

A Metro car - Underground, they called it here - loomed into his vision. It was dark and clearly out of service. It would do. Nikolai roughly jammed one of the doors open with his short knife, slipped sideways through the narrow entrance he had created and slid automatically into the darkest shadows while his eyes grew accustomed to the deeper blackness inside. 

And that's when he heard it - a stifled whimper. It had come from the far end of the carriage. 

"Who is there?" he called out sharply. There was no answer, but the insistent tattoo of the raindrops against the metal car seemed to carry an air of panic. Nikolai pulled his pen light out of an inside pocket and played the narrow beam across dusty, faded upholstery and ten-year-old advertisements. He walked forward cautiously and grunted in amused surprise when he came across an elaborate tripwire arrangement. He stooped to disable it with one hand while still moving his small pool of light around the further corners. The beam caught a hand as it came up to cover a face. Nikolai stood up and focused his light upon the young man who sat huddled on the floor between two seats. 

"Oh fuck," whispered the youngster. "Kill me quickly, then," he said aloud in a trembling voice. "Get it over with, please!" 

Nikolai raised an eyebrow in the darkness. "I was not planning to kill you." 

The young man dropped his arm, exposing white and shockingly beautiful features. "You're not American!" he exclaimed. 

"You are, however." Nikolai moved a step closer, and the other scrabbled backwards into unyielding metal. As he did, the turn of his head exposed rivulets of dried and drying blood from one temple. "You are also wounded." 

The youth put his hand to his head and grimaced when it came away redder and stickier than it already was. "I'm fine," he insisted. 

Nikolai ignored him. Going down on one knee, he took firm hold of the young man's chin with one hand, playing the light over his face and head with the other. "You were lucky," he said eventually, releasing his grip. "It bleeds, but it is not serious." 

The young man looked into the other's face, obviously seeing it now for the first time. "Who are you?" 

"I am called Nikolai." 

"Russian..." 

Nikolai shrugged. Some things were too obvious for comment. "And you?" he prompted. 

"Oh. Drew. Drew Baylor. I'm a designer, a footware designer, from Oregon." Drew bit his lip, as if suddenly realizing that he could not afford to be so forthcoming with a stranger. 

"Hold this, Drew Baylor." Nikolai gave him the flashlight and strode back down to the door he had forced open. With quick, efficient movements he opened his trenchcoat, pulled his shirt from his trousers and ripped at the hem until he had a fair-sized rag. He held the cloth through the crack in the door with one hand, bringing it back completely soaked in less than a minute. All this while, Drew sat with head bowed, shining the light in small, uncertain circles upon the floor. 

"Come," said Nikolai, helping Drew to his feet and settling him firmly upon one of the seats. He started to clean away the sticky mess; his touch was gentle, even if his words were stern. 

"I'm fine," said Drew again, trying to twist away, though not very convincingly. 

"Do not move." Drew subsided. "Now hold light steady." 

Nikolai prolonged the cleaning a little. The young man was indeed very beautiful, with dark curling hair and large eyes shining dark in the feeble light. Brown, probably. His features were small and regular, his skin almost as smooth as a woman's, though there was just the hint of a five o'clock shadow. By the time Nikolai had served his third sentence in Siberian prison, he had had his pick of the new younglings, but none of them had ever looked like this. Nikolai gave himself a mental shake and put the rag into Drew's hand, indicating silently that he should press it against the shallow wound. 

"Why is an American coming to kill you in the middle of London, Drew Baylor?" he asked abruptly. 

Drew looked at him, fear showing. "I don't ... I don't know," he stammered. Nikolai stared him down. "Yes, yes I do know. He phoned me and told me why. Last night. Was last night Saturday?" 

"Who phoned you?" 

"The guy. The guy with the gun. He said they were going to kill me. He said nobody costs the family that much money and lives to tell about it." Drew shifted in agitation, one knee twitching up and down. 

"Family," repeated Nikolai. "Mafia are not usually such poor shots, even American mafia." He smirked. "You had lucky day, boy." 

Drew frowned in annoyance at "boy," but he sighed and reached down into the pocket of his jacket, which lay crumpled on the floor. "You're right," he said, pulling out the shattered carcase of a cell phone. "If I hadn't been using this..." 

Nikolai took it from his hand and examined it dispassionately, then tossed it aside. "When did this happen?" he asked. 

"I'm really not sure - I don't know what time it is. Maybe - maybe an hour ago? An hour and a half?" 

"Did he fire again?" 

Drew scratched his nose thoughtfully. "No, and it was weird. He put his gun away and pulled out his own phone and ran right past me - right past me! - while I was still standing there in shock, bleeding all over the place. And then, of course, I started to run, and I had no idea where I was going, and I just ran and ran, and I'm sure people thought I was completely bonkers, but nobody stopped me, and eventually I got on the Underground and rode all over the place, and got off at the station back there and came out here..." 

But Nikolai did not seem interested in the details of how Drew had found his refuge. 

"Where did this happen?" Drew gave the street name. 

"Which way did he go? And as he was running by you, did you hear him say anything? A name?" 

Drew hesitated. "Towards the river, I think. And... he said, 'Mr. Scary-something'. Scary Otto. Something like that. Maybe. I'm not sure." 

Nikolai pursed his lips slightly. "Sgarioto?" he asked, with a passable Italian accent. 

"Could be. Yeah." 

Nikolai gave a small snort of derision. "Buffalo family. In our territory. He should know better. Hold one moment." He stalked off into one corner and turned his back, pulling out his own sleek mobile. Drew heard a series of soft, barked orders in Russian, amongst which he recognized 'Sgarioto' and 'Charing Cross'." Fidgeting, he discovered the still wet cloth in his grip, and applied it again distractedly to his head. 

The Russian snapped his mobile shut and turned back to Drew. "You will be safe now," he said. "He will not bother you again." There was a finality in his voice that suppressed any questions Drew might have dared to ask. "You should go back to your hotel, get your passport, go back to America. Stay in a quiet, small place for a while, just to be safe." 

Drew gave him a frantic glance. "I can't... I can't. What if they're still looking for me?" 

Nikolai sat down beside him and put a hand on his shoulder. "He was not trying to kill you - only scare you." 

"How would you know that?" 

"First of all, you are still alive. And secondly," the Russian added, "he warned you. Very unprofessional for a real hit. Very effective for scaring." Nikolai became aware that he was enjoying the contact of smooth warm skin through a thin shirt much too much. He let his hand drop. 

Drew huddled his knees up to his chin. "It worked: I'm scared to leave," he muttered. 

Nikolai shrugged. "Suit yourself. You will be hungry and thirsty soon." He almost regretted the harshness of that when Drew turned big, terrified eyes upon him. He reached into his trenchcoat's ample pocket and pulled out a half-full bottle of water. "Here. Take this." 

"Thanks," said Drew in a small voice. He was staring at the tattoos on Nikolai's hands, but he said nothing, so Nikolai did not comment either. He was used to that. 

"Maybe you can fill the bottle up with rainwater," suggested Nikolai with something that was almost a smile, trying to coax Drew into a better frame of mind. 

"The rain's stopping." 

Nikolai listened. The raindrop tattoo had diminished to an occasional metallic plink above them. 

"Then I must go," he said, standing. But he turned to the curled-up figure on the seat one more time. "Go home, Drew," he said. "You will be all right." 

Drew didn't answer aloud, but his minute, stubborn shake of the head said all that was to be said.

Nikolai tested the heavy door at the end of the carriage. To his surprise, it yielded easily to his hand. This, then, was how the boy had found his way in. 

"Thank you," came a quiet whisper.

With a slight, courteous nod, Nikolai said, "You are welcome." And he left.

-/-/-/-/-

"Kolya!" groaned Kirill. "Ah God, Kolya, Kolya!"

Beneath him, Nikolai shifted his grip on the edge of the table he was bent over, and hoped fervently that Kirill was close. Some nights were luckier than others. Some nights Kirill was so drunk he was incapable, and after some truculent muttering would allow himself to be rolled into his bed to sleep it off. Not tonight. Tonight the liquor was only slowing him down, making him slobbery and sentimental. Nikolai hid his expression of distaste against the hard wood of the table as Kirill planted wet lips against his shoulder blade.

"Faster!" he growled, hoping his irritation would sound like passion. But Kirill was not to be hurried tonight. He had even insisted on preparing and lubing Nikolai, though it was hardly necessary. After one particularly raucous party when Kirill had succeeded to his father's underworld throne, Nikolai had learned the hard way never to enter the other man's bedroom unprepared. Everything came with a price. As he endured the leisurely grinding, Nikolai told himself he had paid far more than this for things he had wanted far less. For a little temporary discomfort, he had control of Semyon Volkov's crime empire. And soon it would come crashing down by his hand. Soon, very soon. "Faster!" he urged again.

"I always knew you were queer," whispered Kirill gleefully, breathlessly. "You fooled everyone else, but I knew. Nikolai the tough guy! You're my bitch now!" Nikolai didn't bother answering him. He'd heard it all before.

At long last, the thrusts sped up and began to lose their rhythm. Nikolai reached for himself, not because he particularly felt like it, but because he knew Kirill liked to see him out of control, out of breath, tousled and panting like an ordinary man. Nikolai did not care about this destruction of his calm outer shell when Kirill demanded it. Let the stupid ox think he had won a victory, exposed the true Kolya. Nikolai knew better. There was a place inside him, small and hard and hollow like a bullet, where he kept his real self. That place Kirill had never touched and never would. 

His flesh began to respond within his hand; Kirill, of course, would never deign to touch another man's cock; that would make _him_ queer too. But at least he had stopped talking and would soon explode. Nikolai reached for his familiar memories and fantasies to finish the business off. A little to his surprise, instead of the old prison standbys, or that first shocking day of freedom in Amsterdam, it was the beautiful boy from the Underground car who came into his mind's eye. Nikolai welcomed the boy in, bent the lithe body in two, licked the white skin of neck and thigh, ran his fingers through the soft curly dark hair, pressed his hard hands into the smooth flesh until the boy - Drew, that was it, Drew - begged to be mastered, to be released. Eyes tightly closed, Nikolai came with shocking force.

Kirill dragged Nikolai upright and back into the reality of his sweaty, alcoholic stench. "Kolya," he crooned. "You enjoyed that, _da_? You cannot deny it."

" _Da, da_ , Kirill," responded Nikolai tiredly. Now came the worst part. "Come on, it is late. Come to bed." They lay down together, and Kirill snuggled into Nikolai's neck. And, as always, he began to weep.

"You will not leave me, Kolya?" he asked, as he always did. "I need you. Do not leave me."

"Shh, Kiryusha, shh," he soothed. "I am here. I am not leaving." Nikolai had no compunction about lying. You didn't survive long in his world if you didn't know how. But it was at these moments that he felt a terrible, exasperated affection for the hapless lummox in his arms. Almost. The lummox, he reminded himself, was dangerous. But still he put a gentle hand at the back of Kirill's neck, and murmured again, "Shh, Kiryusha. All is well." It was the worst part, yes, because he almost believed it himself.

As the younger man drifted off to sleep, Nikolai put the time to good use by running over in his mind all the arrangements he had made with Yuri Mikhailovich, that strange creature from the Russian Desk at Scotland Yard who could pass for an Englishman or a Russian at will. They were ready. With two weeks notice from Nikolai, and much support, albeit unofficial, from Nikolai's employer, the FSB, Scotland Yard would in one single night drop the hammer on all of the various organizations and networks that had once reported to Semyon Volkov and now to him, through Kirill. The girl-smugglers, the drug-dealers, the arms merchants. The enforcers, the debt-collectors and the money-launderers. Scotland Yard knew every hideout in Britain, every place of meeting, thanks to Nikolai. No-one deluded themselves that it would be a night without bloodletting, and Nikolai, if it should come out that he were the traitor, would be in the greatest peril of all. It was his call to make. He knew he would make it soon.

Kirill shifted restlessly in his sleep, and Nikolai sat up with care. Soon this - this _situation_ \- would be done with too. Nikolai had hesitated at first, even after the old man was safely under lock and key, to let Kirill's pawing progress to more. But in the end it had turned out well. Kirill was much more docile, letting Nikolai make all the important decisions, and rarely challenging him in public. Of course the sex was supposed to be a secret. And of course Kirill was boasting about the fact that he topped Nikolai. Nikolai knew, because others told him. And he knew that, by and large, Kirill was not believed. Nikolai's authority had not been undermined. Yet. 

He recalled the first time the subject had come up, or rather been thrown in his face. He had given an order to one of the hired thugs, an Englishman, a low-level collector of debts. The thug hadn't liked it. 

_"Piss off, fag!" he said._

_Nikolai turned and faced him, casually undoing his coat so the handle of his large knife was visible. "I said," he repeated, "take those boxes and put them in the van."_

_"And I don't take orders from foreign faggots!" blustered the thug. "Everybody knows Kirill fucks you witless every night!"_

_Nikolai took a step forward, glaring. Despite himself, the man shifted backwards._

_"And who told you that?" It was said quietly, but Nikolai's hand now rested firmly on the knife handle._

_"Kirill," muttered the thug._

_"I see. And you think it is true?" The words came out like the hiss of a snake._

_The man's eyes fell away from the Russian's angry gaze. "N...no."_

_Nikolai permitted himself the slightest of eyerolls, and the jacket fell shut again. "Kirill is Kirill," he said, with a shrug._

_The man put the boxes in the van._

Now Nikolai sighed slightly and pulled the blanket over Kirill. He had bought a little time to gather information for Scotland Yard, that was all. Eventually the stories would get about and he would not be able to bluff his way past them. The call would have to be made before then.

Meanwhile, as he went wearily to his own bed, he had something new to think about: a pale face with long dark eyelashes, lit uncertainly by a pen light.

[ ](http://www.statcounter.com/wordpress.org/)

[My ficlist is here](http://surreysmum.dreamwidth.org/48133.html)


	2. Chapter 2

Nikolai parked his motorbike right at the back of the LT parking lot, heaved his small backpack over one shoulder, and glanced around to make sure he was not observed. It was dusk, and there was no sign of life at all from the old Underground car. He told himself he was on a fool's errand.

Nonetheless, he strode briskly through the field, then made his way up the more sheltered side of the car, past the only partly-coloured graffiti letters. "Yorks." Or was it "Yoicks"? He tapped casually, gently against one of the windows.

No face appeared in response, and he started to turn away. But then he heard the metallic clunk of the door at the end of the car, and Drew appeared, peering out into the dusk.

"You came back!" he exclaimed. "I couldn't believe it when I saw it was you! Come in, come in." He ushered Nikolai into his temporary home.

"I brought you something to eat." Nikolai reached into his backpack and pulled out a couple of styrofoam containers and a large bottle of water, full this time.

Drew exclaimed again over the hot food. "This is so... so incredibly kind of you," he got out between ravenous bites.

"No big deal. I work at restaurant," Nikolai told him. He put his feet up on a dusty, greenish seat and settled back, lazily watching as Drew stuffed himself with Chicken Kiev, enjoying the young man's uninhibited haste.

The second styrofoam container was full of a sticky, flaky mess. "Baklava?" asked Drew, licking the honey blissfully from his lips.

"Baklava - very Russian," agreed Nikolai drolly. He shrugged. "It sells well."

Drew stopped in mid-bite. "God, you must think I'm an Ugly American,' he said. "Would you like some?"

Nikolai shook his head. "I ate already." He caught Drew's eye. "And no, I only think you are American."

The compliment was oblique enough to be ignored, but Drew made no pretence. "Thank you," he replied a little shyly, and then turned his full attention back to the baklava. Nikolai handed him a paper towel just as he started to look around for something to wipe his sticky fingers on. Nikolai's thought about how better to clean those fingers must have been visible in his face, because Drew gave him a sudden sidewise glance and smiled a little.

"Are you ready to go home now?" asked Nikolai abruptly. He wondered why the hell that had become important to him.

"I suppose I'll have to," replied Drew soberly. "Subway cars aren't really made for sleeping, and I can't keep relying on kindly strangers for meals on wheels..."

Nikolai thought for a moment. "I will make you a deal," he said. "I will go to your hotel and check out for you, bring your things to you tomorrow night, and drive you to the airport." The astonished pleasure in Drew's eyes was his immediate reward. "In return, you will tell me the story of why you are here in London, and why an American gangster is shooting at you." And if there were ever a more obvious excuse for spending time in a young man's company, Nikolai hadn't heard of it.

"Well, it's not very interesting," Drew demurred. "I'm just in London as a tourist; I've been through a bit of a rough time lately, and my Mom and my sister gave me some money to take a holiday, see some sights."

"A rough time?"

And so the story came out, in long, winding, illogical sentences: the whole sorry saga of eight years devoted to developing the prophetically named Spasmotica, the ultimate athletic shoe that completely failed to sell. Drew's features hardened as he told how his boss Phil had insisted Drew throw himself on his sword, taking full responsibility for the fiasco, in an effort to save Mercury Worldwide Shoes. Drew had heard it hadn't worked; the company had nearly gone under, rescued at the last minute at bargain basement price by a multinational company. But that hadn't helped the original stockholders one little bit.

"Do you think that's why the Scary Otto guy tried to kill me?" asked Drew. "Maybe his family were stockholders?" His look of bewildered innocence was sheer intoxication to Nikolai. "I didn't know that gangsters invested in - well, you know, shoes and things…"

Nikolai chuckled very slightly. "Like everybody else, they invest where money is to be made."

"But I'm not important enough to chase across the Atlantic and kill."

Nikolai patted his shoulder. "No, you're not. I told you, he was only trying to scare you. I had a long conversation with Mr. Sgariotto's hit-man today, and he was in London on quite other business." _Which_ , he added to himself, _he will most certainly not be carrying out_. "Likely he recognized you from the magazines, and the boss told him to go ahead and give you a bad moment."

Drew shuddered.

The last of the dusk had disappeared now, and they were speaking quietly in near-total darkness.

"Eight years buried in the office," mused Nikolai aloud. "How did your wife feel about that?"

"No wife," replied Drew. "And actually nobody serious in all that time."

"Truly?"

"There was a woman, for a few weeks, just after the whole thing blew up," Drew continued.

 _Ah. Ah, well. Better luck next time, Nikolai_.

"But she moved on fast; I couldn't hold her interest. She was kind of a flaky girl. Or maybe she figured out that I really pref… My God, what was that?"

Nikolai hushed Drew's startled exclamation at the loud thump on the outside of the carriage. A raucous chorus of youthful voices, shouting instructions and cheerfully obscene insults, gave evidence that the graffiti artists had returned to work on their masterpiece. Nikolai beckoned Drew, and they sat quietly on the floor at one of the doors, invisible below window level. Drew was quick on the uptake, to Nikolai's relief. No point in making an incident.

The width of the doorway was confined for two grown men, and in the blackness Nikolai was aware of Drew's breaths, his fidgets, his warmth, his pleasing aroma. _A man living rough for two days has no business smelling so good_. Nikolai was amused.

Drew took a breath to whisper, and Nikolai immediately shook his head. Drew nodded, accepting the prohibition.

"That bit was supposed to be green, you fuckin' cunt!" bawled a young man no more than a foot from their heads. Nikolai felt Drew hold his breath and then release it with a little sigh as booted feet stomped away. Drew seized Nikolai's hand in the blackness, and brought the palm audaciously to his lips.

In his shock Nikolai nearly spoke. Instead he turned his head, his face a scant inch from Drew's. Warm, hurried breaths chased across Nikolai's lips.

With a muffled noise deep in his throat, Nikolai put a hand to the back of the boy's head and drew him into a hungry kiss, savouring the honey sweetness of the baklava, and something sweeter still. His powers of observation lasted a few seconds longer. Drew was no novice; after a yielding second, he answered fully, welcoming Nikolai's questing tongue and insisting gently with his own until Nikolai, too, let himself be explored. Then Nikolai stopped thinking. The little bullet in which he locked himself melted away like sticky candy and in a few moments of rapturous insanity he poured all of himself into Drew's kiss.

He drew back. Nikolai Luzhin feared nothing, but he was terrified by this. He wanted to get up and leave, but the hooligans were still clanging around outside. What had this young man done to him? This boy could be anything - just what he seemed, or a hooker, or a plant by one of the many enemies Nikolai had earned over the years…

Drew's hand touched his face tentatively, and the other tugged at his shoulder. Nikolai brushed the young man's lips with his own, then holding the fingers against his face, shook his head emphatically so that Drew would understand.

Sensing the younger man's distress, he slid an arm around him, caressing the boy's arm sporadically and tenderly. For fifteen long minutes they sat together in their cramped space, wordless, awkward, and yet both somehow very glad of the contact.

"Shite! Coppers!" yelled one of the painters outside. A few seconds later, a powerful beam swept around and perfunctorily inside the car.

"All clear, Joe. The little fuckers have scarpered," came a new voice.

Then there was silence. Eventually Nikolai rose to his feet. "I must go now," he said in a low tone.

"Did I offend you?" asked Drew. "What did I do wrong?" Though he pitched his tone to match the Russian's, the emotion in his voice was evident.

"No," replied Nikolai, a little roughly. "Nothing wrong. Do you have your hotel keycard?"

Drew found it in his jacket pocket and handed it over. "How will you settle my bill? You can't sign my credit card slip! You'll need cash."

"It will be fine," said Nikolai dismissively. But Drew insisted on pulling out his wallet. 

"Damn, I can't see it," he muttered. "Take it all - I went to a cash dispenser, just before… just before everything. So there should be enough."

Nikolai accepted the cash without comment, mentally resolving to return it hidden amongst Drew's possessions the following night.

"You should be on your way," Drew said, his voice just a little hard.

"Yes." But Nikolai did not leave. Instead he brought his hand to Drew's face, and ran a thumb slowly across one cheek. "I apologize," he said at last. "I will see you tomorrow at nightfall."

"Will you?" asked Drew, stepping back.

"I am man of my word, Drew."

In the utter blackness, Nikolai heard everything: the sharp breath Drew took to utter a reproach, the pause and rustle of baffled fingers through hair, and the soft, confused words that eventually emerged. "OK. Thank you for everything you've done. I mean that."

"My pleasure," Nikolai replied formally, and made his way out into the dark.

-/-/-/-

"You are very late!" complained Kirill. "Where have you been, Kolya?"

"Had a delivery to make," replied Nikolai, pushing past into the restaurant's kitchen to grab a bite to eat.

"I missed you," said Kirill, clumsily flirtatious. "Come upstairs."

"Not now, Kirill," replied Nikolai through a mouthful of food. "I am tired."

"What do you mean, not now? Come upstairs! That's an order!"

Nikolai gave him a bleak stare, but Kirill was wilfully impervious. He grabbed Nikolai's sleeve and hustled him up the stairs. Nikolai, still chewing and definitely annoyed, went with him. Though the restaurant had been closed for hours, plenty of people had keys. Better to settle this in private.

Kirill slammed the door shut behind them. He pulled Nikolai's coat from his shoulders and flung it in a corner. His hands went to Nikolai's shirt buttons, but Nikolai stopped him with a firm grip at his wrists.

"No, Kirill." He turned away.

"Don't tell me no!" Kirill's hands reached around Nikolai's shoulders from the back and ripped his shirt violently half off. "You do as I say, you dumb Siberian ox! I own you!"

Nikolai turned back with a dangerous look in his eye. "Calm down, Kirill," was all he said.

"Calm down, Kirill! Always calm down, calm down!" He jabbed at one of the _vor_ stars on Nikolai's shoulders. "Who got you those, huh? You owe me everything! Don't fucking tell me to calm down. You're not my fucking father!"

 _If I were your father, you'd be curled up screaming on the ground right now._ Nikolai held on to his temper with a massive effort. "I wear the stars on my knees too," he reminded the other man.

"Maybe you don't kneel to other men, but you will kneel to me, you cocksucker!" growled Kirill, advancing on Nikolai and trying with his greater weight to force Nikolai to the floor.

"Enough!" snarled Nikolai. The next thing Kirill knew, he was slammed up against the wall and the tip of a sharp knife was pricking at the skin of his neck. "Now, be calm."

Kirill swallowed hard, and stopped fighting. "Don't hurt me," he said in a suddenly small voice. Nikolai forced back a wave of disgust at Semyon Volkov, that he could have brought his son to this. "I do not wish to hurt you, Kirill," he said, and, point made, let him go. Kirill collapsed onto a chair with his head in his hands, trying to hide the sobs.

Sighing, Nikolai went to his own room, dressed himself quickly and went out into the park, to a bench that was well out in the open. Then, satisfied that he could not be overheard, he made the call.

[ ](http://www.statcounter.com/wordpress.org/)

[My ficlist is here](http://surreysmum.dreamwidth.org/48133.html)


	3. Chapter 3

Nikolai parked his big, sleek Mercedes in the LT parking lot just after dark the following night. Then he slung his backpack across his back, and picked up Drew's small suitcase and a plastic bag full of enough warm food for two.

No fool's errand this time. Drew was definitely waiting for him. Nikolai felt his way into the darkness of the carriage. He handed the plastic bag and suitcase over to Drew, and surreptitiously stowed his own backpack under one of the seats a little further away, under cover of removing his coat.

"How have you been?" he asked. "Have you been outside?"

"Well, I've been having to step outside occasionally ever since I got here," admitted Drew, embarrassed. "You know, to pee… But today I kicked a rock around in the field a bit, on the back side there. I don't think anybody saw me. It was kind of nice. Peaceful but noisy, in a city kind of way."

"You play football? What you call soccer?"

Drew shrugged. "Everybody knows how to kick a ball around."

"One day," said Nikolai, pulling the food out of the bag, "maybe we will get the chance to play a little football together."

"That would be good," agreed Drew, "although I don't see how it could ever happen."

Nikolai reached again into the bag and pulled out a couple of table candles from the restaurant. "I remembered to bring light this time," he said with satisfaction, and setting them on a ledge he lit the candles. "I have always thought I might visit America some day, Drew."

"That would be great," replied Drew with unfeigned enthusiasm. He accepted a styrofoam dish of food. "Thanks, Nikolai." The syllables of the name stumbled a little awkwardly from his tongue. "Do your friends call you Nick?"

"You can call me that if you like." _Anything but Kolya._.

"Thanks, Nick. Drew is short for Andrew, by the way, but only my mom ever calls me that, and only when she's real mad."

Nikolai thought back briefly to the last time he had had the luxury of a mother to be mad at him. When he was eight? Nine? before his father had driven her away with his cruelty, anyway. "Then I will be sure to call you Drew," he said.

They munched in silence for a while. "God, that was good," said Drew eventually.

"I am extremely proficient microwave operator," Nikolai informed him, deadpan.

Drew laughed delightedly. "I bet you fit in real well here!" he said. "You make all your jokes with such a straight face."

Nikolai wasn't sure about that. He didn't much care for the English - at least, not for the ones he met in his line of business. Then again, he didn't much care for the Russians he knew either. He shrugged slightly. "I try to fit in wherever I go," he told Drew.

Drew looked at him for a long moment. "Who are you, Nikolai?" he asked, slowly.

Nikolai looked down for a second before replying. "I think you do not really want to know that, Drew."

The young man was staring at Nikolai's hands again. Nikolai moved them forward, into the flickering light, so that the tattoos were more visible. "I got those in prison. In Siberia. Is that enough for you?" The young man's face had an unearthly beauty in the candle-light. Nikolai was uncertain whether it had paled at his words. He did not move his hands away when Drew touched the backs of them, first one, then the other, and let his touch linger.

"Not really," Drew told him.

"Who do you think I am, then?" Nikolai's voice was rough from the effort of suppressing the desire that had arisen in him at Drew's light touches.

"Well, I know you don't just 'work at a restaurant'," Drew told him, his hand moving gently, caressingly over Nikolai's. "You know about the American mob, and you give people orders. You carry a knife." His gaze was troubled as he spoke, but his fingers never ceased their soft stroking. Nikolai did not move. "And," Drew went on, "you have gone out of your way to help me, three times now, in the most generous way. I think," he said resolutely, "that you are a kind man trapped in a very dangerous and difficult job."

Nikolai shook his head. It was too simple, too generous. The boy was much too attractive, much too vulnerable. Nikolai wanted to seize him, kiss the naiveté out of him. He withdrew his hand. He pulled his shirt hastily apart, exposing the cross of the thief, the _vor_ stars. "There are more," he said gruffly. Let the boy learn what he was getting into.

But Drew did not ask why he had the tattoos, or what they meant. Instead, he ran a fingertip reverently over the dark blue ink and asked, "Did that hurt a lot?"

"Only as much as it needed to," replied Nikolai, his breath quickening despite himself.

Drew pulled abruptly back and hauled down the waistband of his pants at one side. "I got a tattoo when I was a stupid kid," he said. "It _really_ hurt." Nikolai found himself looking at a small yellow sun, temptingly perched on smooth skin just above Drew's hipbone. He touched it, and Drew gave a little sigh.

Intrigued, Nikolai pressed harder, surely to the point of discomfort, and Drew made no protest. Instead he stripped his own shirt over his head with startling abruptness and, seizing Nikolai's hand, pressed it flat in blatant invitation against his smooth, vulnerable stomach.

Desire flared in Nikolai's loins, warring against his rapidly diminishing impulse to protect the boy. But still he deserved a warning, and Nikolai gave it his best. He gripped the young man's slender waist with both hands. "Look at me," he growled. But he didn't need to: Drew's luminous gaze was already fixed steadily upon his face. Slowly, without the slightest pretence of gentleness, Nikolai pressed his hands possessively up the boy's narrow torso. Just a little more pressure and surely one of those prominent ribs would have broken under his palms. He reached a pair of large brown nipples, already peaked in flagrant provocation. Drew's breath rose and fell quickly within his grasp, but the boy's dark eyes regarded Nikolai steadily. Nikolai seized the nipples and pinched them cruelly. Drew's lips parted and he let out a little whimper. There. Warning given. Nikolai started to pull away, ready to deny his own roaring blood.

But Drew seized the retreating tattooed hands in a frantic grasp and jammed them back against his chest. The boy's head dropped back. "More," he whispered.

The flickering candle-light turned red for Nikolai at that moment. For the life of him he could not have stopped himself from lurching forward, pushing Drew's hands roughly aside, and sinking his teeth into the flat muscle of Drew's chest, laying his mark. The bullet inside Nikolai exploded, never to be contained again.

Drew cried out and his hips bucked into Nikolai's, giving ample evidence of his trapped and desperate arousal. "More," he urged again, his head tossing.

Nikolai stilled him with a firm grip in his curls. "Who _are_ you, Drew Baylor?" he asked urgently.

"You know… everything about me," panted Drew, his hips striving frantically, futilely, for more friction.

Nikolai bent his head to his captive, plundering his mouth. Only when the older man was fully satisfied did he say, raspingly, "No. I do not know how you sound when you are fucked."

Drew grew quiet under him. He brought a hand up to touch the angry scar on Nikolai's cheek. "Then find out," he said simply. There was not an ounce of fear in him. With an excited lurch in his stomach, Nikolai realized he had met his match.

He stood up. "Floor," he ordered.

Without apology, Drew grabbed Nikolai's pristine trench-coat and laid it out on the dirty floor of the car. He started to unzip himself. "My job," said Nikolai firmly from where he sat, still half-dressed. Obediently, Drew allowed himself to be stripped, though he helped by kicking off his shoes. Nikolai turned him, exploring with blunt fingernails the smooth perfection of his arse. He smiled imperceptibly as Drew's knees buckled a little under a rapid, rubbing assault between the tight cheeks. "Down, then," he murmured, pushing Drew towards the sacrificed coat. The mist of his passion had dissipated a little, and he felt an unfamiliar urge to be gentle with the boy, although he was not entirely sure he knew how.

Drew took up position on his hands and knees, and glanced around questioningly. With an abrupt gesture, Nikolai indicated he should lie on his back instead. Drew stretched himself out, arms under his head, cock standing proudly, the very picture of seductive compliance.

He stayed that way only a few seconds, however, pushing himself back up as Nikolai removed his own clothes. "Oh, that's nice!" he said. "May I?" He didn't wait for the formality of an answer, but took Nikolai immediately into his warm mouth.

Nikolai could not understand his eagerness. It was foreign to his experience. He put a big hand in Drew's curls, gently this time. The pleasure was flooding his senses, but still he had to ask. "Does this not shame you?"

Lost in the sensation of hard thickness fitting so perfectly in his mouth, Drew took a few seconds to register the question. He pulled off reluctantly, long enough to utter a perplexed "Shame me?" before returning to far more interesting matters. Giving the older man's balls an exploratory roll between his fingers, he was gratified by a rumbled groan and a surge from the organ traversing his flattened tongue and hollowed cheeks. 

"Now, Drew," said Nikolai, stopping him. He knew his limits.

"Now, Nick," agreed the young man. But then his face fell, almost comically.

"It is all right," said Nikolai, fumbling through a jacket pocket to produce condom and lube. He pushed a brief vision of Kirill's hungry face out of his mind, irritated.

"Boy scout!" laughed Drew delightedly.

A wolfish grin split Nikolai's features, one that would have shocked and perhaps terrified all his London acquaintance. "Never have I been accused of _that_ before, Drew Baylor," he said.

Drew had started to pry open the lube, but allowed his hands to be lightly smacked away as Nikolai claimed the prerogative. It took no time at all to make everything safe and slippery, and to drive Drew to a state of desperate need at the ends of three of Nikolai's powerful fingers.

Nikolai lined himself up. "Yes?" he asked Drew one last time.

"Christ, Nick! YES!" bellowed Drew in exasperation.

Nikolai took him at his word, pounding him with all his strength, hard and furious. Drew egged him on, twining sinewy legs around his back, and pushing back with all his own not inconsiderable force, aided by a white-knuckled grip on the metal seat supports above his head.

It couldn’t last long, not at that pace. "Touch me, Nick," begged Drew. "Touch me now, please."

Nikolai seized upon Drew's cock without hesitation. Drew keened in pleasure. When they came, it was within a few seconds of each other and gloriously sticky.

After their panting subsided a little, Nikolai sat up to retrieve some left-over napkins to clean them up a little. Drew laid a hand on his thigh.

"You fuck like a demon," he said appreciatively.

Nikolai's mouth twisted wryly. "Maybe because I am one," he replied.

"Then I want a demon lover," Drew joked.

Nikolai's expression went suddenly blank.

Drew sighed and bit his lip. "I didn't mean it that way, Nick," he said. "I'm sorry. This is what it is. And I'll never regret it. But I'm not asking for what you can't give."

Nikolai's face remained grim, but he reached out and took Drew's hand in a grip so tight it hurt.

"I still wish to visit America someday," he said quietly. "So it is not impossible, Drew, that someday we will… kick a ball around an American field together." He gave the tiniest of shrugs and let go of Drew's hand. "But if that does not happen - well, neither do I regret what has happened." And he reached a hand to the side of Drew's head, cradling it gently, delicately, and gave him one apologetic kiss instead of all the things that could not, must not be said. Then he stood up, with effort. "Time for airport, no?"

"Yes," said Drew sadly, and started to pull on his clothes.

The drive to the airport was nearly silent, Drew in the back of the plush Mercedes, and Nikolai in front wearing his peaked chauffeur's cap, at the Russian's sharp insistence. "It is how they know me at Heathrow," he said. "It is for my safety." After that, Drew could hardly protest.

Only once, heart heavy at the sight of Drew's pale face in his rear-view mirror, did Nikolai attempt to strike up a conversation. "Maybe you will send me postcard when you get to your little town in America?" he suggested.

"Maybe," responded Drew miserably, not even bothering to point out that he wouldn't have the first idea where to send such a thing.

At the departure area at Heathrow, Nikolai got out to open the door for Drew. "Tip me," muttered Nikolai, all his senses alert for observing eyes in this brightly-lit place.

"What?"

"Tip me. Your money is in your jacket pocket."

Biting his lip angrily to keep the tears at bay, Drew blindly thrust a fiver at him, and felt something pressed into his palm in return.

It was only after the Mercedes rolled smoothly away that Drew looked at the business card in his hand. It said, "Trans-Siberian Restaurant, Nikolai Luzhin, mgr." And there at the bottom was the full street address.

-/-/-

In the hushed minutes just before dawn of a day about two weeks later, a somewhat shaken Nikolai Luzhin made his way across the field one last time to the abandoned Underground car. It had been a narrow escape, but he was confident that no-one had followed him here to his refuge. His hand went to his throat. He would wear Kirill's bruises for a while yet.

Once in the car, he pulled out the backpack he had stowed under the seat on that memorable night with Drew. The hesitant light of dawn glanced through the windows and on to his pale skin as he stripped from his suit and tie, and pulled on the clothes from the backpack. A pair of jeans, at least a size too small in Nikolai's opinion - but Yuri had assured them they were worn that way in America. A t-shirt, similarly tight. A pair of athletic shoes, unnaturally bouncy; Nikolai stared at them thoughtfully for a long minute before lacing them on. A decent leather jacket. So far so good.

With a sigh, Nikolai reached further into the backpack and pulled out a wig of longish, greying hair. He could not imagine how any self-respecting man could wear hair so long, but there was no doubt it would alter his appearance dramatically.

From the bottom of the backpack, he produced a small tube of highly effective concealing make-up, and dabbed it by touch over the scar on his face. Then he applied it to the backs of his hands as well.

It was light enough to see properly now. Nikolai reached for the broader of his knives and surveyed himself in the reflection from the blade, nodding approval. It would pass all but the most rigorous inspection. He had transformed himself, as they had transformed him at Scotland Yard nearly two weeks ago, into the man in his passport photo.

His passport… He opened the envelope he had been clutching when he arrived, the envelope that Yuri had thrust into his hands less than an hour ago, bidding him, "Go! Go! Good luck!"

He rifled through the contents. A wallet full of ID, all of it impeccable, legitimate. A couple of fully functional credit cards. A debit card on a hundred-thousand dollar account at a major American bank. A social security card. A plane ticket. All of it was in the name of Nicholas Lountz, naturalized American since 1997, and holder of the American passport in his hand. On one of the latter pages was a visitor's visa for six months to Britain, in correct form. Not only that, but Nikolai knew that every official document supporting the ones in his hand would be found in their proper offices -- in Russia, in Britain, and most certainly in the States. There were advantages, he reflected wryly, to working on the government side.

His mind flew back irresistibly to the events of the night. It had taken little to persuade Kirill to call a meeting of the bosses at the restaurant once the first reports of Scotland Yard's activities had started to trickle in. So there they had all been, conveniently cooped up like chickens in the same henhouse, when the stalwart British bobbies, looking much too comfortable with their assault weapons, burst in the doors and began the counting, naming and arresting of the occupants.

At first, Kirill had been too busy blustering to notice that no-one was trying to handcuff Nikolai. But when Nikolai crossed the floor to talk to the sergeant, Kirill gave a scream of outrage, bodily flung off the three men who were holding him, and launched himself across the room at Nikolai. His hands locked round Nikolai's throat. Nikolai did not try to fight back. His lungs were stopped, and his vision almost completely faded to black before the startled police managed to pry Kirill off him. Through a loud buzzing in his ears, he heard Kirill's anguished shouts. "You traitor! You cocksucking bastard! I always knew you would betray me! You… ! You… !"

 _Demon_ , supplied Nikolai's thoughts tiredly.

He came back to himself in the small private dining room, with Yuri handing him a glass of water.

"Better now?" Yuri asked in clipped tones - honestly, he grew more indistinguishable from the English every day - as Nikolai soothed his battered throat. Nikolai nodded.

"Good." Yuri sat down across from him, all business. "As of this moment, you are officially on furlough. I'm not saying we'll never call you in again, but I expect to hear absolutely nothing from you for at least the next two years. You are the keep the lowest profile you have ever kept. Do you understand me, Mikhail?"

Nikolai's head snapped up at his nearly-forgotten real name.

"Nicholas," he retorted gently.

Yuri nodded. "Nicholas. Did you have to choose something so close to Nikolai?"

Nikolai shrugged.

Yuri's features softened for a moment. "You're valuable to us. No incidents. I mean it."

"No incidents," Nikolai agreed.

"You're still in a lot of danger. Have you a safe place to make the change?" Nikolai nodded. 

Then, in the manner of the English, Yuri had expressed all his emotion with a long, hard handshake, handed him his envelope of documents and urged him on his way.

Nikolai rose from his seat in the dusty old car and turned his attention to clearing away the small evidences of his visit. His discarded clothes went in the backpack - after all, you needed some baggage on a trans-Atlantic flight. His knives he regretfully and carefully buried amongst the weeds outside. Weapons didn't travel. He grimaced at the thought that in America it would probably have to be a gun. Nikolai did not care for guns. They evened the odds too much.

He shrugged on his leather jacket, turning up the collar to hide the bruises a bit. Then, exclaiming internally at his own carelessness, he carefully extracted a postcard from the breast pocket of his old jacket where he had carried it since it arrived. On the back it said simply, "Beautiful place. Wish you were here. D."

Nikolai tucked it safely into the inner pocket of the new jacket. As he emerged from the Underground car, the sun shone brightly on his face, and wonderfully, improbably for this barren place, the song of birds was greeting the dawn. Nikolai nimbly kicked a stone from his path and began to run towards the moving trains that would start him on his journey.

As he ran, faster and faster, he wondered whether Drew had received his answer yet. It was a postcard of an Underground train. He had addressed it to Drew Baylor, General Delivery, Elizabethtown, Kentucky, USA. On it he had written, "See you soon. Love, Nick."

Full of sudden joy, Nick smiled as he ran.

_finis_

[My ficlist is here](http://surreysmum.livejournal.com/101295.html).

[ ](http://www.statcounter.com/wordpress.org/)

[My ficlist is here](http://surreysmum.dreamwidth.org/48133.html)


End file.
